The Dark in Me
by Alexandria di Angelo
Summary: Haley, a smart teenager with several medical conditions, thinks that she'll spend her eighteenth birthday and senior year in solitude. Two men that she knows change her mindset as her world is drastically changed. Through loneliness and depression, she finds light and happiness for the first time in years. When she has to make a life-changing decision, will she stay or will she go?


**The Dark in Me**

 **By Alexandria di Angelo**

CHAPTER ONE

"And as always, I will see you in the next video," the man with fluffy, black hair and glasses said as he pointed at me from behind the screen on my phone. "Buh-bye!" He waved like a maniac at this farewell, and the video I was watching ended. I giggled as I saw the silly thumbnail of the video I had just watched and thought, "Mark, why are you such a goofball?" Markiplier, the formal name that graced his YouTube channel, had managed to chase my blues away once again for the infinitieth time since I first starting watching his channel and subscribing to him. I had known him as a friend and an older brother ever since my freshman year; and now, coming up on my senior year, high school was going to be a blast, with Mark posting on regular schedule time. I smiled to myself as I thought, "Good grief, it's almost here." The time for me to transition from the fence I was teetering back and forth on as a person stuck between adult life and childhood. What was it the Bible said? "As a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man (or a woman, in my case), I put away childish things." The verse of 1 Corinthians 13:11 stuck fresh in my mind when the plans of my future after graduation came to mind. I would soon have to put away the childish things that I had clung to for so long to move on and mature into the adult that people would expect me to be. Not that that would be an issue, though: I was already like an adult, in some aspects. I had no friends to talk to, unless they needed something from me, so adjusting to dealing with carnivorous business folk and hateful people didn't bother me. I had no family to please, since my brothers all grew up in various homes after my parents died years ago and I had no idea where my other family members were, so being alone wasn't unfamiliar to me. It would just be the thought of being required to deal with people that mocked and ridiculed me as I finished my last year of school. I was already starting college courses, and I was technically able to go to college while still enrolled at my high school, so I was in the process of deciding whether to go back to public school or to just take online courses for college and high school. I wouldn't have to make a solid decision for a month and a few weeks. Before I got to work on cleaning around my apartment, I checked the calendar date and made an x over today's date, marking that today was seven months exactly from my next birthday. My eighteenth birthday, to be precise. I shook my head as I said, "I'll only celebrate it alone," before I set to work on cleaning my nearly clean apartment. After half of an hour passed, I fixed some tortellini for my dinner and ate a salad as I watched my favorite movie, "The Phantom of the Opera." After I cleaned up from dinner, I heard the clock in the living room chime eight times before I checked my phone. It was actually ten-thirty, two and a half hours later than what the clock had indicated. "I really need to get that clock fixed," I thought as I yawned. My eyelids suddenly felt really heavy and I rubbed them to keep myself awake, which confused me. I was an insomniac, so sleeping at a later time than most people could even think about was not uncommon to me. This, however, was unusual. I never got tired this early, unless I had worked extremely hard that day or was sick. I decided to worry about that later as only one thought prevailed: I needed to lay down. I barely got to my room before I yawned again, feeling my body grow heavy as I sleepily changed into some comfortable clothes. After slipping a red shirt and black yoga pants on with some socks, I slipped into my bed and set my phone to the side of me as I felt my mind begin to slip into dreams. Something was very wrong, I knew that much, but I had no power left to fight as I dropped into a deeper sleep than what I had ever experienced before.

"Christ above, have mercy on me," a man immersed in shadows whispered as he watched the girl in the apartment fall asleep. He felt bad for enchanting her sleep cycle, but assured himself that it was necessary. The girl was out cold, gone to sleep faster than the blink of an eye. His voice hung low, clinging to the ground with the night to hide his face from the full moon. "She's… beautiful," he finally exhaled, his breath shaking as he took in her sleeping figure. Her face, usually racked with worry, was now relaxed. Her breathing was slow and deep, and her heart rate that was usually so fast, to match her life, was steadied. It was the most calm that she had been in a month or so, the man observing her from her window thought just as a crash to his left distracted his attention. After some cursing in Gaelic, the darkness echoed with a cry of the Lord's name. "Jaysus!" The bush behind the man at the window shook as another man with vibrant green hair stepped out and dusted himself off, muttering, "Remind me to never trust you to find a landing spot for teleportation from a car." The man hushed his companion, hissing, "You'll ruin this opportunity if you don't shut up, you overgrown jellybean!" The pathetic insult was scoffed away as the Irishman whispered, "So, this is the one? The lass we've been looking for?" The man nodded and whispered, "Now for the next part of the plan." The Irishman sighed and said, "You do realize that I'm losing valuable time for sleep because of this, right? I could be cozied up in my bed right now." The man said, "Nonsense. You wouldn't sleep knowing that I was doing this myself. Besides, you were the one who begged to come with me." The Irishman rolled his eyes as he phased through the wall of the girl's apartment, his steps falling lightly as he reached her bedside. He checked to see how deeply she was sleeping, then looked around her simple and clean bedroom. His hands took hold of a backpack that hung on the back of her door and he set to work on packing her clothes, electronics, and other important things into the bag. He sighed as he looked around for anything else that he could take, then phased through the wall again and met the man under a nearby tree. The man took the pack and let the Irishman phase through the wall again and stand by the girl's bed. She stirred as he gingerly lifted the blankets off of her, turning to lay on her right side and face the man that held his breath anxiously. She relaxed and the Irishman remembered how to breathe as he scooped her up in his arms. He phased through the wall one last time with the girl and met up with his friend as the trio walked away from the apartment. The moon illuminated the path ahead of the three, but only the shadow of the limp and unconscious girl darkened the road as they trekked on. The men stopped at a car not far from the apartment and unlocked it, where the Irishman had his friend help him open the back door. He slid into the back seat with the girl still asleep as the man sat in the driver's seat, setting the backpack on the seat next to him. He looked back at the girl and the Irishman, saying, "Thank you for not waking her up." The Irishman softly chuckled, saying, "We Irish can be quiet when given the chance." The man jokingly added, "That, and a few beers," before starting the car. Not another word was spoken as the two were enveloped in their own thoughts. "Finally," the man thought as he imagined the girl in the backseat, "she'll be safe and sound." He drove for about an hour until he finally pulled into a cul-de-sac, seeing his friend dozing as he looked in the mirror. He called out the Irishman's name and said, "We're home," just as he parked in a gravel driveway. The two story house in front of the trio was lavish and grand, but there was no time to admire its beauty as the men set to work. The Irishman propped open his door and slipped the girl into his friend's arms as he slung the backpack over his shoulder and whispered, "I'll get the doors." The man nodded and let his friend lead the way, staring down at the girl and feeling his heartbeat waltz as she stirred. He stopped walking and whispered, "Rest," to the beauty in his embrace, watching as she relaxed and fell back into her deep sleep. After maneuvering himself and the girl into the house, the Irishman shut the doors as he offered his room for her. Even with the polite offer, the man cradling the girl refused and said, "I already have a room prepared for her." He walked down a long hallway with many rooms and pushed open the door to a guest room, where he laid the girl in the uncovered bed. After covering her with the blankets, he felt his heart soar as she smiled softly at the warmth that encased her figure. The Irishman left her backpack on a chair not far from the bed and watched as the man closed the curtains of the canopy around her bed, shielding her from the outside world as she slept on. The two men walked into the hallway and shut the door silently, as to not wake their guest. "I can stay with her tomorrow," the Irishman said, "since I don't have work." The man thought for a moment and nodded, despite the pain in his heart at the thought of not getting to talk to their guest before he had to leave for work. The two agreed and parted ways, each man preparing for the day ahead of them. The man changed from his clothes, a two piece suit with a bright red tie, into some comfy pants and a shirt before he reached for his phone. He messaged the Irishman and said, "Tomorrow, please do not confuse her even more than what she will be. I suspect that she will be… unhinged when she sees that she is not in her apartment." Not a minute after he sent his message, the Irishman replied with, "Don't worry. I'm not going to play any games or make her uncomfortable with being here. It is for her good that she's here, after all." The man nodded and shut off his phone, turning onto his left side and facing the coast line that greeted his eyes as he stared down Owen's Beach. "Sleep well," he said to the girl in the silence of the night, his words swallowed by the dark. "Sleep well and dream, for your darkness no longer exists."


End file.
